One of the most popular forex trading strategies that is used by major traders today is based on fundamental analysis, where the trader looks for trading signals based on announcements by central banks such as the Federal Reserve. If a central bank makes a key policy decision such as changing the interest rate, this can have a big impact on the value of a currency in the foreign exchange market and can therefore provide the trader with a reliable trading signal.
The central bank that traders pay the most attention to is the Federal Reserve, since the US dollar is the most widely used currency in the world. All of the major currency pairs offered by forex brokers today which have the lowest spreads all have a US dollar component, and so any fundamental announcement by the Federal Reserve can present the trader with multiple trading opportunities across major currency pairs. .
One popular way to find trading signals based on central bank announcements is based on the interest rate and whether the central bank decides to add or subtract basis points from the current interest rate. Since many of the biggest foreign exchange participants are banks and institutions, they will often deal with each other using a trade known as the carry trade which is based on the interest rate differential between two different currencies.
The value of the interest rate of different currencies compared with the US dollar will determine how major banks and institutions value the carry trade that takes advantage of the interest rate differential, and this will help the trader to determine whether they should be long or short the dollar after an announcement from the Federal Reserve. As a rule, it is a bullish signal for the dollar when the interest rate is increased, meaning that the forex trader should sell the EUR/USD and GBP/USD currency pairs based on that signal.
Another important central bank announcement is a policy change announcement, and today there is a major focus on the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing in the markets. If a central bank makes an announcement that marks a clear change of course in terms of their fiscal policies, this can cause a major move in the markets that forex traders can take advantage of to earn several hundreds pips. By understanding how central bank announcements can impact the foreign exchange market, you can use that data to find trading signals and improve your forex trading performance.
Algorithmic forex trading is one of the opportunites today that can allow retail traders working from home to have access to institutional level trading tools when trading the forex interbank market.